One Big Mindfuck

The worst thing one can do when coming near to the opening of a show is to obsessively read the reviews of other shows.

Which is, of course, exactly what I have been doing.

I read reviews a lot. Of other people's shows, of my own shows -- there really isn't a reason for a director NOT to read their own reviews, unless their psyche can't handle it (and sometimes, sure, I wonder if maybe that statement applies to me...) -- of shows in other cities, of other productions of shows I am working on.

I think it's genetic. My brother and father also read reviews compulsively. Of theater, of movies, of restaurants. We probably all give the critics too much power.

But doing that now completely freaks me out. Because I read things in reviews that I know could be picked at in whatever show I am working on. It makes the little faults and errors that I see when watching a runthrough blare in my head. I can even imagine the head lines they can come up with for a show.

It's not a pretty place to be.

And so, as a tribute to the institution of reviews, and in a stunning example of blatent and unabashed schadenfreude, I will post the first two paragraphs of my favorite theater review, ever, for the musical GOOD VIBRATIONS:

Even those who believe everything on this planet is here for a purpose may at first have trouble justifying the existence of "Good Vibrations," the singing headache that opened last night at the Eugene O'Neill Theater.

But audience members strong enough to sit through this rickety jukebox of a show, which manages to purge all catchiness from the surpassingly catchy hits of the Beach Boys, will discover that the production does have a reason to be, and a noble one: "Good Vibrations" sacrifices itself, night after night and with considerable anguish, to make all other musicals on Broadway look good.

-Ben Brantley

I mean. Wow. Ow, ow, ow, ow.

As if the show itself did a disservice to the theater. I did not see the show. I wouldn't argue that yes, it was probably as bad as he describes. But still.

Ouch.